SENATE DISTRICT 31: Roth maintains lead over Miller

Democrat Richard Roth added to his lead early Wednesday over Republican Jeff Miller in Riverside County’s 31st Senate District, capping a multimillion-dollar race that has statewide implications.

The outcome in the 31st, along with the results in two other Senate contests, will determine if Democrats achieve a two-thirds supermajority in the state Senate for the first time since 1965. The threshold would allow them to sideline Republicans on taxes and other issues.

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In addition, Assembly Democrats were poised early today to grab two-thirds control of the lower house, something that party strategists and others had not thought possible all year. The last time Democrats had a supermajority in both houses was in 1933, Senate Democrats spokesman Jason Kinney tweeted.

In a vote tally posted at 8:03 a.m. Wednesday, Nov. 7, Roth led Miller by 11,783 votes, with 100 percent of the precincts reporting. Roth held the lead with 53.4 percent of the vote while Miller had 46.6 percent.

All precincts were reporting, though some votes including provisional ballots still had to be counted.

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“I’ll tell you what – I’d rather be up by 5,500 than down by 5,500 at this point in the evening,” Roth said after a vote update Tuesday night. He was the only Democrat ahead in the three target Senate seats.

Miller said he was confident that Roth’s margin will flip as more precincts report.

“If you look at the registration numbers, we knew we were going to have a harder time in the eastern part of the district,” Miller said at his Corona headquarters late Tuesday. “But we also know that the western part of the district, which I represent, has always given strong numbers for me, election after election.”

Nearly two decades after the Inland region last had a competitive legislative race, the campaign for the 31st smothered voters from Corona to Moreno Valley with increasingly vitriolic mailers, TV commercials and radio ads.

The candidates’ campaigns and independent groups poured more than $7.3 million into the contest through the end of last week, which doesn't count some $1 million in independent spending before the June primary election. Whoever wins Tuesday will earn $90,500 a year plus living expenses, with no retirement benefits.

The 31st was the product of last year's independent redraw of the state's political map. In the June primary, Miller and Roth finished first and second, with former Inland lawmaker Steve Clute, a Democrat, coming in third.

Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg had recruited Roth, a Riverside attorney and retired air force general. But his first-time candidacy hit turbulence a few weeks later when the California Democratic Party endorsed Clute after some local party activists complained about Roth’s donations to Republican candidates.

Independent expenditures played a major role in the contest, spending at least $3.4 million.

Before the primary, business-backed independent expenditure groups pounded on Roth, sending mailers to Democratic households highlighting his Republican donations and business clients. Steinberg and others said the groups saw Clute as the easier fall opponent.

Union-backed groups, meanwhile, hammered on Clute to counter the business groups’ strategy. An angry Clute, who served in the Assembly from 1982 until 1992, endorsed Miller within weeks of his third-place primary finish.

The gusher of independent money resumed in September.

“Richard Roth will be the final vote the Super-Pacs need for a Super-Majority,” read a mailer from just such an independent expenditure committee run by the California Apartment Association. A mailer from the union-funded Opportunity PAC read, “Jeff Miller’s priorities are wrong for California and wrong for middle-class families.”

Miller, a two-term assemblyman who owns an insurance business, said his main goals in the Senate would be to increase the amount of education funding that goes to the classroom and eliminating state regulations that hamper job creation.

Roth said his legislative priorities would be to get money to open the medical school at UC Riverside, improve services for veterans, and encourage job creation.

Republicans spent the campaign fanning the fears of a Democratic two-thirds majority. Roth and other Democrats would approve all kinds of tax increases and other legislation bad for the state, they said.

Democrats countered that Miller and other Republicans are beholden to conservative watchdog groups on taxes and block worthy legislation that requires a two-thirds vote.

Legislative leaders were actively engaged in the contest. Senate Minority Leader Bob Huff was in Corona on Saturday and Steinberg spent part of Monday and Tuesday in Riverside to help the Roth campaign’s get-out-the-vote efforts.

Senate Democrats last had a working two-thirds majority in 1965, when the margin was 27-13. Republicans last had a working two-thirds majority in 1953, when the margin was 29-11.

Assembly Democrats had been focused holding on to their 52-seat majority. But early today, Speaker John A. Perez said his caucus had achieved a two-thirds supermajority, as well, after an apparent upset win in Orange County.

"Nobody expected this to be possible. This gives us 54 people that we know are going to come together on day one to focus on improving the economy and creating jobs," Perez said in a statement.